The present invention relates to a computer system and method for delivering integrated user assistance information and traditional help from the same source in such a system.
A method and system in accordance with the present invention is a method that allows the same information source to be shared and used for both integrated user assistance and traditional online help, regardless of its invocation method.
The term xe2x80x9cuser assistancexe2x80x9d is used to describe mechanisms that help users use a product more efficiently. Things that fall into this category are books (hardcopy and online), wizards, online help, screen prompts, labels for graphical user interface (GUI) controls, and messages. The term xe2x80x9cintegrated user assistancexe2x80x9d is used to describe the mechanisms that deliver assistance to users within software product dialogs themselves. In a software application, these are examples of integrated user assistance: wizards, inline text (single and multi-line text within the product dialogs), hover help (text boxes that appear relative to GUI controls), and pop-up windows (text boxes that appear over fields and controls in response to user action). Lastly, the term, xe2x80x9ctraditional online helpxe2x80x9d in a software application is used to describe that information that is usually displayed in a window separate from the software application dialogs and is typically invoked when the user clicks a Help button.
A method and system in accordance with the present invention allows the same textual information or a subset of the information to be displayed by both integrated user assistance mechanisms (for example, in a pop-up window or as inline text) and the traditional online help window. Conventionally help authors have to store the exact same information in two separate physical sources. One source file would contain the information to be loaded when the integrated user assistance mechanism is invoked and the other source file would contain the same information to be loaded when the traditional online help window is invoked (typically by pressing a Help button). The problem is that the author has to continuously ensure that the information in both physical places is the same at all times and keep the sources in sync. If the help author fails to update both physical places with updated information, the user will see different information that purportedly describes the same thing, depending on whether he invokes the integrated user assistance mechanism or the traditional online help. In this situation, the user would not be able to tell which one held the accurate information. The duplication also increases storage requirements.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for allowing a user to minimize the need to store the same information in multiple sources. The system and method should be easy to implement and cost effective. The present invention addresses such a need.
A method and system in accordance with the present invention allows the help information to be shared independent of its invocation method, so that the information can be displayed in both integrated user assistance mechanisms and traditional online help windows. The method includes receiving an invocation of one of a plurality of user assistance mechanisms; and collecting help information from an information source, the information source comprising a structure indicating what portion of the information source is to be displayed based upon the invoked user assistance mechanism. With a method and system in accordance with the present invention, help authors place a metastructure or secondary structure in the information source. This secondary structure indicates which parts of the information source should be displayed by that particular integrated user assistance mechanism. A method and system in accordance with the present invention reads the information source and secondary structure and then takes the information defined by the secondary structure and passes it to the integrated user assistance mechanism to be displayed. For example, the same text information can be retrieved from one source and displayed in the following three placesxe2x80x94a traditional online help window, inline text in a software dialog, inside a pop-up window over a control. With the method and system in accordance with the present invention, the author only has to maintain one source, so that both the integrated user assistance mechanism and the traditional online help will contain the accurate information.